Aneka Jansen 3: Steel Heart (18 page)

‘And that’s extreme sports in the future?’

Leverson laughed. ‘That’s about as extreme as it gets. You might like this though…’ He picked up a large backpack, which seemed to be made of light structural plastic, and walked out into the middle of the room. Laying it down on the floor, he took a small box from a pocket on the side, stepped back, and pressed a button. The backpack’s top and sides unfolded, rods emerged, swinging out or extending, and pulling Plastex sheets along with them. It took only a few seconds and Aneka found herself looking at a microlight, complete with a small engine behind a reclined flight seat.

‘They’re easy to fly,’ Leverson said, ‘stable, perfect for recon flights, great for taking pictures from. They’re even just about invisible to radar.’

Aneka grinned. ‘Sold. I don’t even care if it will be useful.’ That got a laugh. ‘Okay… What do you suggest for radiation protection?’

‘Drugs,’ Teach replied, starting off across the room towards another stand. ‘You’ll never get enough material in a suit to provide proper protection…’

Aneka followed on behind her. They might have looked like a bunch of hippy sports nuts, but they seemed to know their stuff.

Yorkbridge North Beach, 16.2.526 FSC.

‘You,’ Katelyn panted, ‘are a gaisu machine.’

‘She is,’ Ella said, her voice languid. ‘Why do you think
I
don’t go running with her?’

‘Ten klicks! Ten klicks and she’s not even breaking a sweat!’

Chuckling, Aneka stretched out on a towel beside Ella. ‘Of course not. Gentlemen perspire, ladies glow, horses sweat.’ Ella giggled.

Dillon, lying on the other side of Ella, patted the towel beside him. ‘I think she’s saying you’re a horse, Kat. I’m not sure what a horse is, but bring your horse butt over here.’

Katelyn walked around to that side, but did not lie down. Instead she started stripping off her running gear. ‘I want to get this stuff off first. It’s clinging more than you do.’

Aneka smiled and closed her eyes, relaxing with her head resting on her arms. A minor benefit of Jenlay society was that no one had to struggle with changing under a towel on the beach. They went there fairly often, to the beach nearest their building, along with a fairly large number of Mid-town’s residents. To the north the beach had huge dunes along the western edge which blocked the view of the city, but here you could see the buildings perhaps a kilometre inland, and the smaller ones servicing the beach closer up. There was a station about three hundred metres away to the south, and the concentration of people down there was far higher, but there were small shops, cafés, and even the odd restaurant up as far as where the little group had set up camp.

There were a few families this far from the station, but the majority of people here were couples or small groups. The largest of these was a group of six teenagers: two girls and four boys. Well, Aneka had decided they were teenagers from the way they behaved, but ‘teenager’ did not quite mean the same thing as it had back when she had been one, and there seemed to be a bit of a range in the group. One boy was obviously a few years younger and was not as confident as his friends. One boy and one girl seemed a little older and were obviously a couple. Put together they seemed like a typical bunch of kids, complete with someone’s younger brother who was not really sure he wanted to be there.

‘That’s better,’ Katelyn said. Aneka opened one eye to see the dusky-skinned woman wearing a pair of bikini briefs. ‘Don’t know how you can run in a bikini either.’

‘Talent,’ Aneka replied, closing her eye.

‘You guys are being unfair,’ Dillon commented. ‘I’ve got a pair of tits on either side of me and you
know
how I am about breasts. Aneka’s being good.’

‘Don’t look,’ Katelyn suggested.

‘Not possible,’ Ella said. ‘Men are wired to look at breasts. It’s neurological.’

‘See?’ Dillon said.

‘Of course, even that doesn’t explain Dillon’s obsession. I think he’s just a little warped.’ All three women giggled.

‘Victimisation. I’m being victimised.’

‘Aww, poor baby,’ Katelyn said consolingly. ‘If you’re good I’ll take you up to the dunes later.’

‘I’ll be good.’

‘Uh-huh. You know, if you guys are going off on another expedition soon, this might be our last trip out here for a while.’

‘Maybe we should all take Dillon up to the dunes then,’ Ella suggested.

‘I am not fucking anyone on a beach,’ Aneka said. ‘The sand gets everywhere.’

‘You’re all going to be okay though?’ Katelyn continued. ‘I mean, this is further than you’ve ever been. You’re going
way
outside the Rim. Who knows what you’re going to find out there.’

‘There’s nothing out there that Aneka and Bash can’t handle,’ Ella told her. ‘If we meet it before we get to the surface, well Drake’s ex-Navy.’

‘That ship of yours isn’t armed,’ Dillon commented.

‘No, but it can run
really
fast.’ The big man laughed in reply. ‘Seriously, we know what we’re doing. We’ll be fine.’

Aneka’s nose wrinkled. Ella was just being reassuring, but it still seemed like tempting fate.

University of New Earth, 17.2.526 FSC.

Gillian was frowning when Aneka walked into her office. They had been going over the inventory which had arrived from Extreme Measures before Aneka had gone out for coffee. Now she was frowning.

‘Something up?’

Gillian looked up from her terminal. ‘I have a message through from the Dean’s office. A request from Stephen Teldarian for you to visit him on his island on Odanari, “to discuss Old Earth history.”’

‘Uh…’

‘I feel rather like someone made me into a brothel mistress when I wasn’t looking. I mean, if he wants to see you he should message
you!
’

‘He’s putting a chip down,’ Al said. ‘He’s attempting to suggest that your visit will result in a donation for the expedition. Therefore he makes the request through official channels.’

‘Politics,’ Aneka said aloud. ‘He’s making it official so it
doesn’t
look like he’s bargaining to get into my knickers.’

‘Do we have a reply? We don’t need his money that much, you know?’

Aneka pursed her lips, putting the coffee down in front of Gillian. ‘Well, we could use the money, and if he wants to play it all political, then I can too. Tell them to send a reply saying yes. He sent the message through them. They send the message back.’ She picked up her coffee and started for the door. ‘Now I just have to break it to Ella.’

Yorkbridge Mid-town.

‘You know, if you’re breaking up with me, you could take me to a better restaurant.’ Ella held onto her burger which came in paper from a street vendor and looked up at Aneka a little plaintively.

‘Well, if I was going to break up with you, I would have.’

‘Okay, so you took me out of the office, refused to give me a reason, and bought me lunch… What’s the bad news?’

‘Teldarian…’

‘Gopi! You are breaking up with me!’

‘
Teldarian
has requested that I go visit him on Odanari. He sent the message through the Dean’s office, so he’s… Could you close your mouth, or maybe eat something?’

‘He’s trying to get you into bed. He’s…’

‘Of course he is. Doesn’t mean he’s going to get me. He fucked up. He made it all political so I can play it right back. He wants to discuss history, so we’ll discuss history. If he wants to blackmail me into sleeping with him to get funds, then a recording of him doing so will turn up on some lucky media company’s news desk.’

Ella’s eyes widened. ‘You wouldn’t!’

‘Actually, I would, but… just hypothetically, what’s the problem with me fucking him to get the money?’

‘Well it’s wrong!’

‘Uh-huh, and people have been using sex, and anything else that gave them leverage, to get what they wanted since long before I was born. Since then sex became a recreation; it wasn’t in my time.’

Ella took a bite out of her burger and chewed it. It was an obvious delaying tactic. Ella knew full well that Aneka knew it was a delaying tactic too. That just made it more annoying. She swallowed. ‘That’s not fair. You’re using logic on me.’

‘I’m a real bitch like that. Look, you seem to think that this guy is going to steal me away from you, and…’

‘No I don’t! I… Okay, so part of me does. He’s rich. He’s attractive. He’s rich!’

‘You said rich twice.’

‘He’s
very
rich.’ She burst into a fit of giggles and Aneka joined her. ‘Okay, okay, so I’m being paranoid, but Vashma’s tits, Aneka, you have to admit he’s a huge temptation, isn’t he?’

‘Not really. He’s an attractive option for a bed partner, but that’s about it. Look, I didn’t go off with anyone else before, and now you’ve got these gorgeous new boobs…’ She tilted her head to one side and stuck the tip of her tongue out the corner of her mouth, and waited.

‘You said that didn’t make any difference… And it didn’t, and you’re making a point, and I’ll shut up now before I make more of a fool of myself.’

‘It’s cute that a woman who looks like you and has your absolutely beautiful personality would be so insecure about this, but it’s got to stop. I am
not
going to leave you. Your butt’s too cute.’

‘All right. I’ll try anyway. I’m a psychologist so I
know
you can’t just turn off your insecurities like a switch. I’ll try. And if you have to sleep with Teldarian to get the funds… Well, get video.’

Odanari, 19.2.526 FSC.

Odanari was more or less as Aneka remembered it: hot. Despite orbiting a cooler star than either of the Earths, the planet had an average surface temperature described as ‘hot tropical,’ and Aneka’s skin sensors put it around forty Celsius. The heat hit her as soon as she stepped out through the hatch of Teldarian’s private yacht, which he had sent to New Earth to collect her, and she was glad she had taken the precaution of dressing light.

‘Good flight?’ Teldarian stood at the bottom of the steps which had lowered from the side of the ship. He was dressed in pale cream slacks and a T-shirt. No shoes, which had to be tough when standing on a Plascrete landing platform.

‘Very good. That’s a really nice yacht you have there. You could hold an orgy in the beds.’

Teldarian grinned; there was the slight implication that he had. ‘Glad you liked the ship. My company makes those, of course.’

‘Of course. Maybe I’ll buy one when I become rich and famous.’

He motioned off towards the north and she walked beside him off the landing pad and onto a sand track. ‘You’re halfway there. You’re already famous.’

‘Huh, don’t remind me. Uh, just so you know, the last man who “invited” me to his personal island on Odanari turned out to be a sociopath and terrorist, with a god complex. I hope there’s not going to be a repeat.’

He laughed, and it sounded pretty genuine. ‘I’ve been called a narcissist, but never any of the others. Charles Hunter, right? Humanity First and their agenda to breed the perfect race of Jenlay.’

‘Except he used the old term, Humans.’

‘I got you here to discuss history and money, in that order. Though I figured while you’re here you might have some time to enjoy yourself. The island is a, very dead, volcano and the swimming in the lagoon is excellent. There’s walking. The view from the peak there…’ He pointed to the east where another volcanic remnant poked up into the sky. ‘… is quite spectacular, and you can get there on foot or climb if that’s your preference. I have a yacht, of the floating variety, if you’d like to take a trip off the island. Enjoy yourself while you’re here.’

‘I’ll give that my best shot, Stephen.’

‘I’m glad to hear that.’

They walked maybe two hundred metres through a band of trees before emerging onto a beach which looked like something out of a movie. Almost white sand stretched in a wide curve off into the distance around a lagoon of blue-green water. Aneka figured it had to be a kilometre from where she was standing to where she could see an opening out onto the ocean.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Teldarian said. ‘It’s pretty shallow, and safe, until you get towards the middle of the caldera. That’s deep. Very deep, but it comes up again at the ocean side so the water’s calm unless there’s a major storm brewing. Nothing dangerous in the water either.’

They walked on down the beach a few tens of metres and she saw the house. It was set back from the beach, but with easy access over hardwood decking. Single storey, but huge; Aneka was not going to try to guess the number of rooms. The entire front was Polyglass, but she could see room divisions and three of the rooms looked like bedrooms, or at least they had beds in them.

‘Oh, your choice,’ Teldarian said, ‘beachfront room, or one at the back. The view here is a little better, but some people don’t like the sound from the water. The back rooms have quicker access to the pool, and the trees aren’t bad to look at.’

‘Uh… beach, I think.’

Teldarian nodded and headed towards one of the rooms on the corner of the building. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of giving you guest access to the house already.’ He pushed open a sliding pane to allow them entry and walked in. ‘I’ll have someone down here with your bags, and access codes to the guest network. There’s a terminal in here in case you want to send a message to your partner, but if you’ve a PDA you can hook it in. Select whatever decoration you want. The bathroom is through the door at the back…’ He paused, apparently trying to think of anything else. ‘If you need anything, the staff can get it for you.’

The room was fairly bare currently, but she would be able to change that. She recognised the slightly matt quality to the walls which suggested that three of them, the ones not made of Polyglass, were video walls. The bed was big enough for four people, there was a seating area with two couches around a small table, and a desk with a three-screened terminal on it. There were three doors on the back wall.

‘The other doors?’ she asked.

‘Left-hand one is into the house, middle one is a closet.’

Aneka walked over and opened the middle door. The closet was big enough to house a costume exhibit. ‘I brought one bag, and there’s not much in that. Bikini, a couple of dresses.’